Wednesday February 25th 2026 "Why the lack of insects these days? Birds are to blame, say scientists!"

Yes, Friends, I bet it's been a few months since you were last stung by a wasp, let's say! I personally haven't even seen a wasp since, like, October last year, and I was beginning to wonder why - until I read this "humdinger" of a story on page 94 of our local Onion News for East Hampshire!

And - spoiler alert - herein is all suddenly revealed haha!!!!

Kudos, that man!!!! And reading the Onion story today in rural, semi-precious Liphook, Hampshire certainly brings a knowing grin to the faces of me and my wife Lois, that's for sure!

me and my wife Lois - a recent picture

Having only yesterday been singing, "Where have all the insects gone?", to the tune of "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?", we get the shock of our lives this afternoon, when our daughter Alison drops in for her weekly "catch-up", and we notice a massive hornet or "super-wasp" trying to get in the house through our sitting-room window, almost, but not quite, finding the window that Lois has opened a crack in, to relieve the sudden unexpected HEAT, would you believe!!! 

Yes, too hot, can you believe! That's a problem we had completely forgotten about!

some typical ways a wasp may try to enter YOUR house - you have been warned!!!!

It seems like the little "critters" were just waiting for one nice-ish day and a bit of warm-to-warmish sunshine to say "Right, lads, let's go for it! Lois has opened their windows a crack, so it's now or never!!!!", in their little squeaky insect-style voices (!). 

Somewhere between 61F and 64F (16-18C) must evidently be those little guys' "threshold"!!!!

What madness, isn't it !!!!! And the wasps' threshold, we reckon, must be somewhere between 61F and 64F (16-18C) - and certainly it's all very sudden, because we didn't notice a single fly or wasp on our earlier walk this morning, which took us over nearby Chapel Common, just outside the village of Milland, near the line of the old Roman road between Chichester and Silchester.

flashback to this morning: my wife Lois and I take our daily walk,

which today takes us over nearby Chapel Common near the old Roman road

listening to all the birdsong on our shiny new "merlin" phone app, which is nice!

The mating season's on its way - that's why all the birds are singing this morning, Lois says, and this afternoon, when the sun finally breaks through, the insects are obviously trying to get in on the act, and make their presence felt, which is a bit mad! So the blood must be coursing through their veins too, but do insects have veins? I think we should be told! [postcards only haha!!!]

And it's during afternoon statutory "nap-time" today, that I personally feel the sun's warmth for the first time this year coming through our bedroom window. But today there's no time to linger. We have to be "up and ready" by 3pm in time for our daughter Alison's weekly "catch-up visit". Plus, Lois has to be up and  washing and drying the dozens of little plastic communion cups in time that her church will need at the next Sunday morning meeting.

So, busy busy busy, once again - surprise surprise!!!! 

And it's all just been like that, literally non-stop, for the last 20 years, ever since we retired, back in March 2006. How did we ever find the time to go to work - that's the big mystery !!!!

flashback to this afternoon: (left) our daughter Alison drops by from her home

in nearby Churt, over the county line in Surrey, and (right), while making Alison

a nice cup of tea, I catch sight of the plastic communion cups that Lois is "servicing" (!)

- what madness !!!!!!

Alison tells us that things are pretty hectic in her house currently too, although I suspect not at mine and Lois's level - not yet at least!!! Out of her and husband Edward's three teenage offspring, Josie (19) is now away in Durham on the first year of her maths degree course, but Rosalind (17) is currently taking her A-Level "mocks", and Isaac (15) his GCSE "mocks". 

This weekend, Alison and Ed, plus Rosalind, will be travelling 300 miles north to Durham, near the Scottish border, to visit Josie, and to give Rosalind a first look at the university there - she's already received a condition offer from them. So she's asked Lois and me to go over to their house to look after Isaac in their absence, and drive him to his music and drama events - he's quite the thespian! 

Our daughter Alison and Edward's possible route this coming weekend

from Churt, Surrey, 300 miles north to Durham in the far north of England 

Yes, it's true - Lois and I are going to be a "mummy and daddy" again (!), which will mean a welcome rest from all our taxing "old codger"-style duties here at home in Liphook, and will give us a chance to really put our feet up for once, which will be nice!

Yes, it'll really be like old times! 

And we get more remembrances of old times this evening, watching the first programme in a 3-part series about New York socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who is so heavily implicated in the current Jeffrey Epstein scandal, because, before Lois and I got married, in 1972, Lois was working for Ghislaine's father, in the offices of his flagship publishing enterprise, Pergamum Press, Oxford.

The programme's premise, in this first episode, is that it was the young Ghislaine's relationship with her father, the tempestuous Robert Maxwell, that determined her later close friendship with Epstein. You see, after her father was drowned in a mysterious boating accident in 1991, Ghislaine was searching for a replacement father-figure, and Epstein fitted the bill. And the rest is history.

When Ghislaine was growing up in Oxford UK in the 1960's, Robert Maxwell was Ghislaine's doting, but quixotic father, a well-known figure in the town. And Ghislaine was his adoring, spoilt daughter, the youngest of his 9-strong brood, and very much a "daddy's girl", as Ghislaine's friend and fellow-student at Oxford University, Anna Pasternak, recalls, thinking back to Christmas 1966, as reflected in this old newsreel:

And Anna comments, in this interview for Sky, that "everything about Ghislaine's relationship with her father fed into her later relationship with Epstein, and, from what's alleged, led to this ultimate 'daddy's girl', socialite and networker becoming, for Epstein, 'the ultimate madam' ".

Anna's sister used to go to birthday parties at the Maxwell family home in Headington Hall, and she remembers the other side of Robert Maxwell's character from the doting dad role that he often played - the nastier side. And she remembers her sister's "visceral fear of the figure of Robert Maxwell in the background". "He was", she says, genuinely a very difficult, unpleasant and terrifying man."

However, Ghislaine soon learned to cope with this nastier side of her dad's temperament

However, Ghislaine herself, in her own personality, also inherited some of these nastier aspects from her father, Anna thinks: aspects, which Robert Maxwell himself freely admitted to:

All this makes fascinating viewing for Lois, who, 55 years ago, was working in Pergamum Press's flagship documentation department in Headington Hall, just down the corridor from big boss Robert. In tonight's programme, many of Robert's underlings recall how the big man used to slam the phone down when he was "in a mood", and Lois remembers one occasion in the office when he did this, completely wrecking the phone, which then had to be replaced. What madness!!!!

He was the type of CEO who liked to periodically "stir things up", bursting into the office to suddenly introduce, say, a radical new staffing policy, or radical new working practices, totally on a whim. And she recalls how Maxwell's underlings used to come around afterwards, reassuring staff that things would actually remain exactly as they were, as soon as Maxwell had calmed down and forgotten about it all, and that therefore staff need not be unduly concerned! 

What madness (again) !!!!!

Lois had got a welcome break from her job there, when she got permission to come and stay with me for 3 weeks in Japan during my study year in 1971, a year or so before we got married. And by fixing our wedding day for August 1972, I famously (in our family) saved Lois from a "fate worse than death", because she could turn down Maxwell's order for her to accompany him to a book fair in East Germany, one of his standard seduction ploys (!).

(left) March 1971: for 3 weeks, Lois escapes from her job working for Robert Maxwell

by visiting me for 3 weeks during my study year in Japan, and (right) Lois on our wedding

day in 1972, which saved Lois from a business trip with Maxwell to a European book fair

What a crazy world we live in!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!!